I. Is Drug Policy Reform Possible? .
Many people over the years have dismissed drug policy reform as a pipe dream. They
claimed it will never attract sufficient political or community support. Politicians
advocating reform, they argued, would be swiftly punished by the voting public.
No-one should underestimate the difficulty of achieving major change in such a sensitive
area. Yet during the last decade in Australia, there has been a readiness to support change
unthinkable a generation ago.
When the Queen visited the New South Wales Parliament in February 1992, two
members were severely criticised for declining to attend formal functions because of their
pro-republican sentiments. Yet within a few years, Australians began to think seriously
about republicanism. This experience demonstrates to us how quickly the unthinkable
can become the thinkable. As the late Harold Wilson once remarked, "a week is a long
time in politics".
Who would have thought a decade ago that the Soviet Union and its satellites had only
months to last? Who would have thought a generation ago that Chinese communists
would introduce a stock exchange and capitalism? Who would have thought a decade
ago that apartheid would be dismantled peacefully and that progress towards peace would
be achieved around a negotiating table in the Middle East and in Ireland?
Those who say that prohibition will never be reformed deny the events of the last decade.
Now more than ever we can remind ourselves that "nothing lasts forever". But if
prohibition is to be reformed how will that come about?
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II. In the Beginning...
In order to achieve change, two things are necessary. First, we need to know where we
want to end up, and second, we need some idea of how we are to get there. We can see in
the GAO document enumerating alternative approaches and the monograph on legislative
options for cannabis in Australia the first tentative steps towards spelling out contingency
plans. A few years ago, it would have been unthinkable that public officials could even
consider such a thing as a contingency plan for alternatives to prohibition.
The process of developing alternative options for cannabis policy is already underway in
Australia. In September 1994, the Minister for Justice announced a study to estimate the
costs and benefits of current policy and legislative options for cannabis in Australia. This
approach marks a watershed in our responses to illicit drugs. National and international
approaches have for decades been dominated by moralistic crusades about good versus
evil. How different is a framework of benefits versus costs!
A similar process could and almost certainly will ultimately apply for other currently
illicit drugs. Sooner or later, an individual or a committee will be asked to report on the
costs and benefits of prohibition and alternative options for illicit drugs other than
cannabis. Options for drugs like heroin are more constrained because of our international
treaty obligations. We now have a model for dealing with the intricacies of transitions in
the feasibility study conducted for the trial of controlled availability of heroin in the ACT.
Options can be carefully examined, consultation undertaken and appropriate research
designed and implemented. This approach can be applied to other drugs when the
community and its political leaders consider it necessary.
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III. Winners and Losers
Policies that make the transition from proposals to legislation and regulation must be
perceived as having more benefits than costs. There must be more perceived winners than
losers.
In the United States, it is now clear that drug policy reform run across rather than
between party lines. Some ultra-conservatives support drug policy reform because they
regard prohibition as contrary to the inexorable laws of sound economics. Others support
drug policy reform because they regard prohibition as an unwarranted attack on civil
liberties. On the left of US politics, drug policy reform is supported by those who argue
that it is the disadvantaged and dispossessed who pay the heaviest price for prohibition.
Their major argument for reform is social justice. Support for prohibition is still very
strong among ultra-conservatives who argue that a drug-free state is as American as apple
pie. Any attempt to tamper with prohibition, they say, is a direct attack on the flag,
family and Constitution. In the well-hallowed tradition of American extremism, they
argue that in defence of prohibition, moderation is no virtue and extremism no vice.
There are also strong supporters of prohibition on the American left who argue it is the
disadvantaged and dispossessed minority groups who pay the heaviest price for the war
on drugs because the US has never realty been serious about implementing prohibition.
In Australia, these divisions are not so readily apparent. The Australian Parliamentary
Drug Law Reform Group now has over 90 signatories, with members from the Australian
Labor Party, the Liberal Party, the Australian Democrats and Independents. Membership
includes a former Liberal prime minister, a former Liberal premier, two former Labor
premiers and a number of senior former politicians. Professor Peter Baume, a former
senior Liberal Senator for New South Wales for 17 years, was an early signatory. Mr
Kevin Rizzoli, a Liberal former Speaker of the New South Wales Lower House, is a
signatory. Drug policy reform at the moment draws more support from Labor politicians
than other parties. In Australia, it is unlikely that policy in such a sensitive area will ever
gain the acceptance of the community unless strong political leadership is demonstrated
and cross-party support is assured.
The Australian community is divided on prohibition. As with community opinion polls
on any subject, the results depend or who asks the questions. Support for reform still
falls short of majority but is clearly growing. More than half the population supports
major cannabis reform when the questions are asked in neutral way. There is strong
support for drug policy reform among the leaders of the medical profession, who prefer to
see illicit drugs redefined as a health and welfare issue rather than remaining essentially a
law enforcement concern. The medical profession would also support change based on
careful studies weighing up benefits and costs.
No senior Australian law enforcement official had so publicly expressed doubts about
prohibition until Commissioner Johnson in 1995. But many have been expressing similar
sentiments in private for some time. In the United Kingdom, senior law enforcement
officials have been at the forefront of the prohibition debate. Some police chiefs from
major US cities have been outspoken since the early 1990s. The Secretary-General of
Interpol has also publicly questioned the viability of prohibition. Prohibition is still
strongly supported by junior police officers zealous about ridding the streets of the
scourge of drug abuse. It is only after they have attempted to do this for several years
that they realise that every drug addict arrested in the streets is replaced almost
immediately. If they successfully cleanup street drugs in a neighborhood, prices rise and
property crime increases. As prices rise, corruption increases. Many senior police now
realise that while they cannot win enforcing prohibition, they cannot lose enforcing
alcohol and tobacco legislation. Achieving more responsible consumption of alcohol
wins the police the commendation and respect they deserve from their difficult job.
Drug policy reform will never occur in Australia until there is more evidence of public
support. In the United States, it was the protests of ordinary men and women calling for
an end to alcohol prohibition that sounded its death knell. President Roosevelt convened
the Wickersham Commission to investigate the costs and benefits of alcohol prohibition.
The vast quantities of information they accumulated documenting the high price
Americans were paying for prohibition helped to speed up repeal. The Commission
perversely ended up giving qualified support to prohibition. But it was too late. The
American people had mobilised against prohibition and repeal became inevitable.
In 1995, a group called Families and Friends of Drug Addicts was formed in the ACT,
drawn from relatives of heroin users who had died from a drug overdose. Perhaps this is
the beginnings of a grassroots campaign in Australia for reform of laws governing the
major illicit drugs. A grass roots campaicn for cannabis reform has been in existence for
decades.
Within just a few years, bans on the growing of industrial hemp have been reversed in
several States. Supporters of industrial hemp point out that here is a crop which requires
minimum water, no pesticides and which is friendly to the environment. The industrial,
commercial and economic advantages now seem all too obvious. Prohibition of
recreational cannabis has denied us the benefits of industrial hemp. Similarly, we are
unable to use cannabis to alleviate preventable health problems because it contravenes the
prohibition of recreational cannabis. Sooner or later, people will begin to ask why we can
allow ourselves to benefit from industrial hemp and not benefit from medicinal cannabis.
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Where to From Here?
The retort is often made that to each complex question there is always a simple answer
and it is always wrong. Yet this humorous obfuscation also denies the obvious. At the
heart of the argument lies a simple question: do you prefer your sons and daughters and
fellow young Australians to obtain adulterated drugs of unknown concentration from the
criminal underworld and disgraced ex-policemen, or clean drugs of known purity from a
government clinic? Once that question is answered, other issues fall into place.
Almost two of every three young Australians have tried cannabis. Do we prefer them to
buy their supplies from criminals who may also try to sell them more dangerous drugs or
do we dare to think, like the Dutch, of less harmful alternatives? Sooner or later, we are
led to the inescapable conclusion that the least harmful option is some form of regulated
supply and production.
Our options for illicit drucs other than cannabis are more constrained because of our
international treaty obligations. But we can dispense drugs like heroin, amphetamines
and cocaine to selected drug users through government-regulated clinics in just the same
way that we prescribe methadone. The United Kingdom is a signatory to the same
international treaties as Australia and heroin and other drugs have been prescribed
lawfully there since 1926. Illicit drug users will need to apply to clinics and be assessed.
They will need to demonstrate some evidence of using these drugs for a minimum period
and complications. This system will no doubt be messy, controversial and involve
difficult clinical and ethical judgements. However, the issue is not whether this is an
ideal solution but whether we prefer decisions to be made by clinicians, as best they can,
or by criminals. We now have the very valuable experience of methadone programs to
demonstrate that over time, contradictions can be dealt with and imperfections reduced to
tolerable levels. Some have queried the cost of expanded treatment. Few question the
cost of the present system. In the United States, it was estimated that the cost of no
treatment for a drug User for 12 months was $US43,000, while incarceration cost
$US40,000, adult residential care $US16,500, methadone maintenance $US3500 and
outpatient treatment $US3150. The development of a large treatment system to dispense
currently illicit drugs to drug-dependent users will not be cheap but it will be much less
expensive than current policy.
Getting policies like this through the Australian political system will undoubtedly be a
challenge. Our experience with the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s provides a very useful
model. Cross party Parliamentary Liaison Groups in Commonwealth and State
Parliaments helped to achieve change. Political differences were sorted out in private so
that policies emerged which saved many lives, many preventable cases of AIDS and
ultimately, many hundreds of millions of dollars. We could only benefit from following
similar models for drug policy reform. But we will also need a road map provided by
people with sufficient technical expertise.
We have no choice but to live in a world of reality. We have lived like other nations,
emulating King Canute and pleading with the tides to not move up the sand. Drug policy
reform will help us become a more tolerant and compassionate country. It wilt enhance
our respect for civil liberties. Reform will make illicit drug use less harmful, lessen
crime, reduce the prison population, decrease police corruption and save scarce public
resources. Along the road, we will require some "courageous acts" from our political
masters. However, national and international experience shows us that support for drug
policy reform need not be suicidal. Senator Peter Baume remained the Senior Liberal
Senator for 17 years despite his open and avowed support for free availability of illicit
drugs. Michael Moore, a member of the ACT Legislative Assembly, has been re-elected
twice on a platform which included drug policy reform. We now have some 80
Australian politicians openly advocating reform. In the United States, Kurt Schmoke, the
popular Mayor of Baltimore, has been an outspoken advocate of major drug policy
reform for six years. Yet he was offered a senior position in the Clinton Administration
(which he declined).
Drug policy reform will really get going when politicians realise they have more to gain
than lose by supporting change. It is only a matter of time before an Australian political
party concludes that its chances of capturing the youth vote will be increased by
supporting cannabis reform. The party which captures the youth vote is likely to retain
some of these voters as they age.
Some might argue that prohibition has failed only because it has never been given a
chance to work. They say "send more troops, make one more push, victory is around the
corner". But:
If all the king's horses and all the king's men,
Couldn't put Humpty together again ...
why would adding more horses and more men make any difference? The history of US
alcohol prohibition and off-course betting in Australia tells us there is no choice but to
live in the world as it really is.
Drug policy is often spoken of as if it was a switch with three positions: status quo,
decriminalisation and legalisation. The truth is much more complicated. Drug policy is
in fact much more like a dimmer switch. The previous chapter set out five major choices.
Modifying the details of implementation of the policy within each major option will have
a substantial impact on outcomes. At the heart of the debate lies an assumption about
trade-offs between the deterrent effect of enforcement and the numbers of people who are
tempted to use currently illicit drugs. Prohibition is based on a premise that increasing
the harm for individuals strengthens the deterrent effect and reduces the number of
consumers, thereby minimising problems for the community. Reformers argue that to
liberalise policies self-evidently reduces individual harm, and that taking the profit out of
trafficking will cut the number of potential users, thereby benefiting individuals and the
community.
There is overwhelming support in Australia and other countries for effective methods of
reducing the number of people who wish to take illicit drugs. So far, we have been
unable to develop effective ways of decreasing the demand for currently illicit drugs.
There is no reason why this search should not continue after drug policy has been
liberalised.
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| Chapter I.
| Chapter II.
| Chapter III.
| Chapter IV.
| Chapter V.
| Chapter VI.-VIII. |